‘Alex and Calvin’s’ bill likely headed to Senate-House conference

ANNAPOLIS – A Senate-House conflict over whether and to what extent adults could be jailed for hostingunderage drinking parties is likely headed to conference over the chambers’ respective legislativeresponses to the drunken-driving related-deaths of two recent high-school graduates last June.

“We have our bill and they have their bill,” said Sen. Robert A. “Bobby” Zirkin, chairman of the SenateJudicial Proceedings Committee. “We’ll meet in conference.”

Zirkin’s comments followed the testimony of Sen. Brian J. Feldman, chief sponsor of the Senate’s bill,before the House Judiciary Committee.

Feldman, D-Montgomery, testified Tuesday he expects the House panel to essentially discard his bill inlight of a House-passed measure that prohibits a jail sentence if the adult host merely furnished thealcohol but did not knowing and willfully host the underage drinking party.

“It will be between you and JPR,” Feldman told the House panel, using the Senate committee’s nickname.

“I respect the committee process. I will defer to this committee and JPR to make the right call.”

Zirkin, D-Baltimore County, said later that his committee will retain the Senate-passed version, whichprovides for a potential jail sentence for the furnishing of alcohol. The impasse would force a conferenceof senators and delegates to hammer out the difference.

A unified bill, if it emerges, would be submitted to votes by the House and Senate.

The legislation, House Bill 409 and Senate Bill 564, was prompted by the deaths last June of Alex Murkand Calvin Li, both 18, in a single-car crash on a residential road after attending an underage drinkingparty. The recent graduates of Rockville’s Thomas S. Wootton High School were passengers in a cardriven by Samuel Ellis, 19, whom police said was legally drunk while approaching speeds of 100 miles perhour on Dufief Mill Road in North Potomac.

Ellis is facing charges of negligent homicide by automobile while under the influence, among othercounts; Kenneth Saltzman, whom police said hosted more than 20 underage drinkers at his NorthPotomac home, pleaded guilty to two counts of furnishing alcohol to individuals under age 21 and paid a$5,000 fine.

Saltzman had broken a state law prohibiting adults from “knowingly and willfully” allowing someoneunder age 21 from possessing or consuming an alcoholic beverage at the adult’s residence. The statute,which currently carries no jail sentence, makes exceptions for members of the adult’s immediate familyand for participants in a religious ceremony.

Both the Senate- and House-passed versions would add a potential jail sentence of up to one year for afirst offense and up to two years for each subsequent violation of knowingly and willfully hosting anunderage drinking party. But the Senate measure would include as a jailable offense the furnishing ofalcohol, while the House bill would not.

The House Judiciary Committee placed the furnishing exclusion in the bill as an amendment.Del. David Moon, D-Montgomery and a supporter of the amendment, said the exclusion is designed toensure that college seniors cannot be jailed for drinking beers with underclassmen.

Both the Senate and House bills – titled “Alex and Calvin’s Law” – would increase the maximum finesfrom $2,500 to $5,000 for a first offense and from $5,000 to $7,500 for each subsequent offense.

The Senate passed its version, SB 564, on a 46-0 vote on March 3; the House passed HB409 on a 136-3vote on March 17.

Del. David V. Fraser-Hidalgo, D-Montgomery, is the chief sponsor of HB 409.

While proposing stricter criminal sanctions, legislators have declined to address whether parents or otheradults who host underage drinking parties could be held civilly liable for harm caused by or to inebriatedguests who get into a car. However, Maryland’s top court has recently heard two cases addressingwhether the state’s common law provides for such civil liability.